Ene-Margit Tiit

Ene–Margit Tiit (born 22 April 1934 in Tartu) is an Estonian mathematician and statistician who became the founding president of the Estonian Statistical Society.

Tiit in 2014

Ene-Margit Tiit at the Opinion Festival 2021 in Paide, Estonia

Early life and education

Tiit is the daughter of mathematician Arnold Humal [et] and was born in Tartu on 22 April 1934. She went to a high school in Tallinn and completed her undergraduate studies in 1957 at the University of Tartu, then called Tartu State University.^[1] She remained at the same university for her doctoral work, defending a dissertation on Ridade ümberjärjestamisest (On rearrangements of series) in 1963 with Gunnar Kangro as her doctoral supervisor.^[1][2]

Career

After briefly working at the Estonian Agricultural Academy before her doctorate, Tiit returned to the University of Tartu as a faculty member.^[3] There, the topics of her research included "mathematical statistics, population sciences, sociology and anthropology".^[1] She founded the Department of Mathematical Statistics there, and became its first regular professor.^[4] The Estonian Statistical Society was founded in September 1992, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Tiit became its first president.^[1]

She retired in 1999, but continued to work as a senior methodologist for Statistics Estonia.^[3]

Recognition

In 1995 the University of Helsinki gave Tiit an honorary doctorate. She is also a fourth class member of the Order of the White Star.^[4] She is an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.^[3]